Conservation

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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14096/25

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Resolving land tenure security is essential to deliver forest restoration
(Springer Nature, 2023-05-25) Rakotonarivo, O. Sarobidy; Rakotoarisoa, Mirindra; Rajaonarivelo, H. Manoa; Raharijaona, Stefana; Jones, Julia P. G.; Hockley, Neal
Tropical countries are making ambitious commitments to Forest Landscape Restoration with the aim of locking up carbon, conserving biodiversity and benefiting local livelihoods. However, global and national analyses of restoration potential frequently ignore socio-legal complexities which impact both the effectiveness and equitability of restoration. We show that areas with the highest restoration potential are disproportionately found in countries with weak rule of law and frequently in those with substantial areas of unrecognised land tenure. Focussing on Madagascar, at least 67% of the areas with highest restoration potential must be on untitled land, where tenure is often unclear or contested, and we show how unresolved tenure issues are one of the most important limitations on forest restoration. This is likely to be a bigger problem than currently recognized and without important efforts to resolve local tenure issues, opportunities to equitably scale up forest restoration globally are likely to be significantly over-estimated.
Shifting agriculture is the dominant driver of forest disturbance in threatened forest species’ ranges
(Springer Nature, 2022-05-12) Kadoya, Taku; Takeuchi, Yayoi; Shinoda, Yushin; Nansai, Keisuke
Forest disturbance, including deforestation, is a major driver of global biodiversity decline. Identifying the underlying socioeconomic drivers can help guide interventions to halt biodiversity decline. Here, we quantified spatial overlaps between the distributions of 6164 globally threatened terrestrial vertebrate species and five major forest disturbance drivers at the global scale: commodity-driven deforestation, shifting agriculture, forestry, wildfire, and urbanization. We find that each driver has a distinct relative importance among species groups and geographic regions with, for example, the dominant disturbance drivers being forestry in northern regions and shifting agriculture in the tropics. Overall, shifting agriculture was more prevalent within threatened forest species’ ranges in the tropics, and some temperate nations. Our findings suggest that, globally, threatened forest species are exposed to a disproportional decrease in habitat area. Combining forest disturbance maps and species ranges can help evaluate agricultural landscape management and prioritize conservation efforts to reduce further biodiversity loss.
Can agriculture and conservation be compatible in a coastal wetland? Balancing stakeholders’ narratives and interactions in the management of El Hondo Natural Park, Spain
(Springer Nature, 2021-10-05) Ricart, Sandra; Rico‑Amorós, Antonio M.
Coastal wetlands are among the most productive and valuable ecosystems worldwide, although one of the main factors affecting their survival is the coexistence between agriculture and conservation. This paper analyses the complex balance between agriculture and conservation coexistence in El Hondo Natural Park (Alicante, Spain) coastal wetland by examining stakeholders’ narratives, perceptions, and interactions. The aim is to highlight the concurrence between socio-economic progress and socio-environmental justice perspectives by identifying those driving factors motivating stakeholders’ conflicts while expanding stakeholders’ behaviour and interaction when discussing the current and future management of this socio-ecological system. Data were collected between April and June 2019 from semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to river basin authorities, regional governments, municipalities, irrigation communities, union farms, regional and local ecologist groups, and social movements; and scrutinized through qualitative data analysis and descriptive statistics. Stakeholders discussed the main driving factors identified through the local newspapers to motivating current conflicts and confronting perspectives in El Hondo Natural Park: (1) the origin and evolution of the coastal wetland, (2) the provision and value of ecosystem services, (3) the management of water scarcity and water quality standards, (4) the guarantee and management of public and private investment, and (5) consequences of a natural park declaration. Likewise, the triple-loop analysis of stakeholders’ representativeness, relevance and collaboration highlighted examples of stakeholders’ underrepresentation and power imbalance, a negative assessment of the stakeholders’ actions, and how agreements are based on both stakeholders’ predisposition to collaborate and affinity.
Transformative potential of conservation actions
(Springer Nature, 2023-04-15) Arponen, Anni; Salomaa
Transformative change can help achieve the 2050 vision of biodiversity, but concrete ways to achieve it are only being discovered. To contribute to the understanding of the practical options for concrete action to foster, accelerate and maintain the transformative change, we assessed the leverage potential of existing conservation actions using the Meadows’ Leverage points framework. We took the actions from the Conservation Actions Classification by the Conservation Measures Partnership. The outcome is a scheme that evaluates at which leverage points, from simple parameters to paradigms, the different conservation actions have potential to make an impact, and thus impact systemic change. We found that all conservation actions have potential to leverage systemic transformative change, with varying coverage of the leverage points. All leverage points were addressed by several actions. The scheme could be used both as an interim tool for evaluating transformative potential in different broad datasets, but also help with planning of new conservation policies, interventions and projects. We hope our work could be a first step toward standardization and broader adoption of assessing leverage in conservation research and practice, achieving broader socio-ecological system leverage with conservation tools.
Overcoming biases and identifying opportunities for citizen science to contribute more to global macroinvertebrate conservation
(Springer Nature, 2023-03-31) Deacon, Charl; Govender, Suvania; Samways, Michael J.
Citizen Science (CS) provides valuable data to assist professional scientists in making informed decisions on macroinvertebrate conservation. However, CS is not developed nor implemented uniformly across the globe, and there are biases and challenges in the extent that it can contribute to global macroinvertebrate conservation. Here, a meta-analysis was performed using 107 Citizen Science Projects (CSPs) to identify underlying biases related to taxon representativity, country wealth, and demographic participation. Macroinvertebrate orders with the highest representativity were Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera, accounting for 53% of represented macroinvertebrate groups. The orders Scorpiones, Parasitiformes, and Spirobolida had proportionately the highest IUCN threat statuses, but significantly lower CSP representation, indicating that these orders require more public attention. Hymenoptera, Odonata, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Diptera and Clitellata had the highest levels of Data Deficient species, suggesting that the primary objective of CSPs targeted at these orders should be collecting distribution and abundance data to improve Red List assessments. Global distribution of CSPs was uneven and the number of CSPs per country was positively correlated with national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita, suggesting that countries with relatively low GDP face challenges to successfully establish and maintain CSPs. Establishing new CSPs can assist macroinvertebrate conservation in these countries, where biodiversity levels are often high. To accommodate these biases, CSP development should adopt a bottom-up approach, in which CSPs are designed to address data gaps, and to address local socio-economic limitations and cultural ideologies. Guidelines for such development are presented here, with emphasis on addressing societal variations and inter-disciplinary communication gaps to ensure equitable opportunities for CSP participation.

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